376 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



1142, in which year Henry, Duke of ^Normandy, granted to the burgesses of 

 Rouen the right that ships trading with Ireland should only go from and to 

 that port. The imposts on the Irish trade were a " tymbrium " of marten 

 skins from each ship, or (if the owners swore that they had none on board) 

 £20 to the Viconteoi Rouen and a hawk, or 16 shillings' to the chamberlain.' 

 The same prince, Henry II, renewed this grant some twenty-four years later 

 after his invasion of Ireland.' 



In the closing years of the twelfth century Giraldus de Barri 

 " Cambrensis," about 1185, found that the Irish had abundance of 

 wine from Poitou, for which they paid in hides " not iingratefully." He 

 reproached the Irish clergy in 1186 for drinking wine and other beverages 

 after their fasts, but denies that the Irish had any trade — "non 

 aliquis mercemoniorum genere nee ulla mechanicarum artium specie vitam 

 producunt."* 



5. Commerce and Foeeign Merchants after 1170. 



"With the fuller information after the Norman settlement in Ireland we 

 get minute information as to the foreign trade.* Previous writers have 

 little to say. I purpose giving it at some length from 1170 to 1320, or 

 about the time that the early portolan maps begin to appear. Foreign 

 merchants came from Lucca and Lou vain to Ireland so early as 1171. 

 The citizens of Dublin sent wine to King John in 1211, and five years 

 later the prices were — for Rochelle wine, 20s. a tun ; for Anjou wine, 

 24s. ; and for the best French wine, 26s. 6d. to 28s. a tun.^ Judging from 

 iheprise of wines, £2 a tun and upwards was not considered excessive at the 

 close of the century. 



Waterford established a tax on wines in 1222 ; Drogheda, in 1228 ; and 

 Limerick in 1237. The 2^rise of wines in Dublin was 9 tuns in 1235, that 

 of Drogheda in 1282 was 64 tuns, valued about £2 5s. 2d. a tun. 



As to the foreign merchants, those of Lucca and Flanders were trading 

 with Cork in 1172-1173, and (as we shall see in detail) Ireland had 

 commercial relations with France, Flanders, and the Italian towns, 



' In Ireland a hawk cost 6/8 in 1229. (Pipe Roll xiii, Hen. Ill, App. 35, Report Dep. Keeper 

 Records, p. 30, for Dalkey Island). The Blaskets, Yalentia, and other islands were held by presenting 

 a hawk. (Plea Rolls, Ed. I.) 



' " Calendar of Documents, France," vol. i, p. 33. 



^Ibtd., p. 35. A charter of 1172 alludes to King Henry's absence "pacificante Iberniam." 



*Topographia Hiberniae (Rolls Series, vol. v, pp. 28, 160, 151), dist. iii, cap. 10. 



'John Yeates, "Growth and Viscissitudes of Commerce," p. 137, barely mentions the trade in 



hides^, skins, wool, and fish from Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda. 



Historical and Chronological Deductions of the Origin of Commerce," A. Anderson (1789 ), 

 p. 26. a , \ I, 



